The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand

Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. --MaxedOutMama

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.--Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. --Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. --Billy Beck

Sunday, January 29, 2017

I'm about halfway through the novel Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey, the sixth in The Expanse science fiction series. In this one the "inner planets" - Earth, its moon, and Mars are in conflict with the Free Navy, made up of warships operated by "belters" - the humans that live and work in the "outer planets" area - the asteroid belt and the moons beyond Mars' orbit.

I've enjoyed the series so far (and the first season of the TV series on the SyFy Channel). But this Easter egg got my attention in the current novel:

In the middle column, the colony ships she and her fleet had taken: The Bedyadat Jadida, out of Luna. The John Galt and the Mark Watney, out of Mars.

Nice nod to Andy Weir there. Would have been neat if one of the ships had been named the Rich Purnell.

On January 12, an Arizona Highway Patrol officer responding to a rollover wreck was attacked by the driver of the vehicle in the incident. The officer was shot in the shoulder and chest, and then the assailant physically assaulted him, trying to bash his head on the pavement.

In a statement given today, the emotional shooter described the incident. Rambo he is not:

DPS Director Frank Milstead discusses the incident in more detail:

Not an off-duty cop. Not ex-military. Just a guy who goes shooting "three or four times a year."

Moreover the Samaritan, Thomas Yoxall, had a felony conviction in 2000 that would have rendered him a "prohibited person" under 18 U.S. Code § 922 (g)(1). However, "In October 2003, a Superior Court judge vacated Yoxall’s guilty judgment and restored his right to possess a gun."

We're told that dangerous criminals like Yoxall can't be trusted with a firearm. Trooper Ed Anderson, I'm sure, is glad that he was armed.

Monday, January 23, 2017

My feeling about Brexit was not anger at anybody else, it was anger at myself for not realising what was going on. I thought that all those Ukip people and those National Fronty people were in a little bubble. Then I thought: ‘Fuck, it was us, we were in the bubble, we didn’t notice it.’ There was a revolution brewing and we didn’t spot it because we didn’t make it. We expected we were going to be the revolution.”

One 82-year-old lady loves Obama and she may have a very good point. She says that Obama is amazing, and is rebuilding the American dream! She gives us an entirely new slant on the "amazing" job Obama is doing, and she says that she will thank God for the President. Keep reading for her additional comments and an explanation. When discussing Obama, she says:

1. Obama destroyed the Clinton Political Machine, driving a stake through the heart of Hillary's presidential aspirations - something no Republican was ever able to do.

3. Obama is destroying the Democratic Party before our eyes! Dennis Moore had never lost a race. Evan Bayh had never lost a race. Byron Dorgan had never lost a race. Harry Reid - soon to be GONE!

These are just a handful of the Democrats whose political careers Obama has destroyed. By the end of 2016, dozens more will be gone. Just think, in December of 2008 the Democrats were on the rise. In two election cycles, they had picked up 14 Senate seats and 52 House seats. The press was touting the death of the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party. However, in just one term, Obama put a stop to all of this and gave the House and the Senate - back to the Republicans.

4. Obama has completely exposed liberals and progressives for what they are. Sadly, every generation seems to need to re-learn the lesson on why they should never actually put liberals in charge. Obama is bringing home the lesson very well: Liberals tax, borrow and spend. Liberals won't bring themselves to protect America. Liberals want to take over the economy Liberals think they know what is best for everyone. Liberals are not happy until they are running YOUR life.

5. Obama has brought more Americans back to conservatism than anyone since Reagan. In one term, he has rejuvenated the Conservative Movement and brought out to the streets millions of freedom loving Americans. Name one other time when you saw your friends and neighbors this interested in taking back America!

6. Obama, with his "amazing leadership, "has sparked the greatest period of sales of firearms and ammunition this country has seen. Law abiding citizens have rallied and have provided a "stimulus" to the sporting goods field while other industries have failed, faded, or moved off-shore.

7. In all honesty, 4 years ago I was more afraid than I have been in my life. Not afraid of the economy, but afraid of the direction our country was going. I thought, Americans have forgotten what this country is all about. My neighbors and friends, even strangers, have proved to me that my lack of confidence in the greatness and wisdom of the American people has been flat wrong.

8. When the American people wake up, no smooth talking teleprompter reader can fool them! Barack Obama has served to wake up these great Americans! Again, I want to say: "Thank you, Barack Obama!" After all, this is exactly the kind of hope and change we desperately needed!!

9. He has saved Carter’s legacy and made Jimmy Carter happy, since Jimmy is no longer the worst president we've ever had. Credit goes to where credit is due. I feel better now!

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Remember the calls for increased civility following the 2011 shooting in Tucson where Congresswoman Giffords was wounded and 18 others were shot? Obama called for "a new era of civility." The University of Arizona (Tucson) opened a new "National Institute for Civil Discourse." "Political Civility" was the new buzzword - and, of course, all of the incivility came from those troglodytes on the Right. In an early example of "fake news," the shooting was blamed on "right-wing rhetoric" because Sarah Palin "targeted" Giffords in campaignliterature. Never mind that the shooter was mentally ill, politically to the Left, and absolutely not a Palin supporter.

To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.

Thomas Sowell, who refers to the movers and shakers in the "progressive" movement as "the Anointed" stated in his book Intellectuals and Society:

Because the vision of the anointed is a vision of themselves as well as a vision of the world, when they are defending that vision they are not simply defending a set of hypotheses about external events, they are in a sense defending their very souls - and the zeal and even ruthlessness with which they defend their visions are not surprising under these circumstances. But for people with opposing views, who may for example believe that most things work out for the better if left to free markets, traditions, families, etc., these are just a set of hypotheses about external events and there is no huge personal ego stake in whether those hypotheses are confirmed by empirical evidence. Obviously everyone would prefer to be proved right rather than proved wrong, but the point here is that there is no such comparable ego stakes involved among believers in the tragic vision. (That would be those of us on the putative "right." - Ed.)

This difference may help explain a striking pattern that goes back at least two centuries - the greater tendency of those with the vision of the anointed to see those they disagree with as enemies who are morally lacking. While there are individual variations in this, as with most things, there are nevertheless general patterns, which many have noticed, both in our times and in earlier centuries. For example, a contemporary account has noted:

Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, foolish, a dope. Disagree with someone on the left and he is more likely to think you selfish, a sell-out, insensitive, possibly evil.

The philosopher Michael Polanyi pointed out that what distinguishes leftism in all its forms is the dangerous combination of a ruthless contempt for traditional moral values with an unbounded moral passion for utopian perfection. The first step in this process is a complete skepticism that rejects traditional ideals of moral authority and transcendent moral obligation--a complete materialistic skepticism combined with a boundless, utopian moral fervor to transform mankind.

David Horowitz spoke in 2013 at The Heritage Foundation. For those unfamiliar with Mr. Horowitz, he was a "red diaper baby" - his parents were card-carrying Communists in the 50's - though he says they only referred to themselves as "Progressives" - and until he had his own epiphany in the 70's he himself was a committed Leftist. No longer. Here's a pertinent excerpt from that speech:

Progressives are focused on the future, and what's the chief characteristic of the future? It's imaginary! The future they are focused on never existed in human history, and as conservatives we understand it can never exist. It's an impossible dream and a very, very destructive one, as we know from the history of Progressive movements in the 20th Century which killed a hundred million people in peacetime.

--

It is, as I've said in many places, a crypto-religion. "The world is a Fallen place, and we're gonna save it."

This is what makes them so dangerous. They see themselves as Savior. A decent - I would say "authentic" religion says that the world is a really screwed up place and human beings are incapable of unscrewing it.

--

People who believe that Redemption will take place in this life, and they're going to be part of it, that's the Hitlers, that's the Lenins, that's the Maos. And unfortunately it's the ideology, moderated of course, but the ideology - moderated for the American framework - of the Democratic Party and the Progressive Left: 'If we have the power, we can do it.'

So if you believe that social institutions can change things by getting enough power, then when you look at your opponents, who are the people who are not going along with the program? You see yourself as the army of the Saints. Who are they? They are, YOU are the party of Satan!

If you want to understand a so-called liberal, just think of a hellfire and damnation preacher and his mentality. That's what it is. That's why they're rude, they're always interrupting, that's why it doesn't bother them in the least that there are no conservatives on their faculty. Because conservatives are evil, they're spreading ideas that are evil, that are keeping people from enjoying this paradise on Earth that they're going to bring about.

The rise and fall of the Marxist ideal is rather neatly contained in the Twentieth Century, and comprises its central political phenomenon. Fascism and democratic defeatism are its sun-dogs. The common theme is politics as a theology of salvation, with a heroic transformation of the human condition (nothing less) promised to those who will agitate for it. Political activity becomes the highest human vocation. The various socialisms are only the most prominent manifestation of this delusion, which our future historian calls "politicism". In all its forms, it defines human beings as exclusively political animals, based on characteristics which are largely or entirely beyond human control: ethnicity, nationality, gender, and social class. It claims universal relevance, and so divides the entire human race into heroes and enemies. To be on the correct side of this equation is considered full moral justification in and of itself, while no courtesy or concession can be afforded to those on the other. Therefore, politicism has no conscience whatsoever, no charity, and no mercy.

David Horowitz would disagree with the assertion that "the rise and fall of the Marxist ideal is rather neatly contained in the Twentieth Century," but other than that, I cannot disagree with Glen Wishard's analysis of "politicism." Neither does Jonah Goldberg.

Progressivism, liberalism, or whatever you want to call it has become an ideology of power. So long as liberals hold it, principles don't matter. It also highlights the real fascist legacy of World War I and the New Deal: the notion that government action in the name of "good things" under the direction of "our people" is always and everywhere justified. Dissent by the right people is the highest form of patriotism. Dissent by the wrong people is troubling evidence of incipient fascism.

Andrew Breitbart certainly understood it, and was the target of so much hatred they made a documentary about it. (Recommended, by the way. Strongly.) Alaska had an invasion of "investigative reporters and scandal-chasers" when Sarah Palin was announced as McCain's pick for Veep, according to MotherJones in September, 2008. Politico noted at about the same time:

The Palin sleuthing in and around Wasilla is getting a little ridiculous, said T.C. Mitchell, an Anchorage Daily News reporter who covers Wasilla and Palmer and was waiting in the Palmer courthouse clerk’s office to make copies of the Richters' file. He had been there earlier in the day and inspected the most pertinent parts, but wanted to make sure he didn’t miss a peripheral detail and get scooped by the suddenly ubiquitous national press.

Mitchell said the Daily News received a call from a media outlet seeking the rules of the Miss Wasilla Pageant, presumably to determine whether Palin cheated when she won it in 1984.

There’s a growing backlash in and around Wasilla to the prying of the national media into the life of their native daughter and her family.

As journalists from ABC News — and, of course, Politico — on Wednesday leafed through bound copies of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman at the local newspaper’s Wasilla office looking for a 1996 story detailing then-Mayor Palin’s conversations with the local librarian about censorship, Frontiersman reporter Michael Rovito said he was not going to write about the pregnancy of Palin's 17-year-old daughter Bristol.

.... now if someone would start digging though some garbage cans in Chicago. Silly me!

Yes, silly him.

So the American public was told everything the muckraking media could dig up (or invent) about Palin during the race, yet just a few days prior to the election, former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw commented during an interview with PBS talking-head Charlie Rose that "we don't know much about Obama." He was speaking about Obama's foreign policy positions, but Charlie Rose later said: "I don't know what Barack Obama's worldview is." Brokaw responded, "No, no. I don't either."

We knew everything there was to know about Sarah Palin, though much of it was wrong - "fake news," but no one could be bothered to talk to anyone about Obama's relationships with Bill Ayers or Rev. Wright, much less find out about his college admissions, transcripts or anything he'd ever written for the Harvard Law Review. Mitt Romney and the 2012 election? He put his dog on the roof of his car, and he didn't pay his taxes. Oh, and he had "binders of women," the sexist.

From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.

Human redemption. The deliverance of humans from sin. By use of Rule of Law. Yeah, no gulags implicit in that.

The thought chills, and he said it in perfect seriousness.

Two years prior to that, Barack Obama stated, after winning the Democrat primary race:

...I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.

I can't help but think he was talking only about the Progressives.

Now we have President-elect Donald J. Trump, largely elected by the people who made up the Tea Party and who were contemptuously rejected by the Republican establishment, not to mention reviled by the Progressive Left. And the Left is going batsh!t. The source of today's QotD delves further into this Church of Progressivism theme. A further excerpt from that piece:

The Blue Church is panicking because they've just witnessed the birth of a new Red Religion. Not the tired old Christian cliches they defeated back in the '60s, but a new faith based on cultural identity and outright rejection of the Blue Faith.

For the first time in decades, voters explicitly rejected the Blue Church, defying hours of daily cultural programming, years of indoctrination from the schools, and dozens of explicit warnings from HR.

We've been trained since childhood to obey the pretty people on TV, but for the first time in decades, that didn't work.

Donald Trump won because flyover America wants their culture back, and Blue Team has not been rejected like that before.

The younger ones have grown up in an environment where Blue Faith assumptions cannot even be questioned, except anonymously by the bad kids on Twitter.

But now the bad kids are getting bolder, posting funny memes that make you laugh even though John Oliver would not approve, like passing crude dirty pictures under the table in Sunday School.

Meryl Streep is panicking because for the first time voters have rejected HER, and everything her faith has taught her to believe.

There is a new faith rising on the right, not an explicit religious faith like old-school Christianity, but a wicked kind of counterculture movement. We laughed at the hippies in 1968, but by 1978 they were teaching in classrooms and sitting behind school administrator desks.

Where will the hippies of 2016 be sitting after eight years of Trump? How many of the shitposting Twitter bad boys will start up alternative media outlets, until one of them becomes the new Saturday Night Live?

Sam Hyde tried it on Adult Swim, but that was just the early prototype, like Mad Magazine was for the left. There will be many others after him, and they won't be stopped by network filters. They'll come "out of nowhere" on the web, from the secret places that the inquisitors at Google can't shut down.

And that's what Meryl Streep is really scared of. She's not truly aware of it, just like fluttering housewives couldn't really understand the counterculture threat in 1968. But they feel that something is changing in their safe little world, and they know they have to fight it, because this threat isn't just passing pointless budget resolutions and selling pointless platitudes about family values - these guys mean business, and they're fighting on her turf.

And once again "political civility" is on the tongues of the media talking heads, and the waves of incivility are being blamed on Trump's supposed legions of hatey-hatemonger racist homo-xeno-gender-phobes in a renewed " 'Shut up,' they explained" campaign. Never mind the actualevidence.

But we won't shut up anymore. We're now in a war of religions, Red vs. Blue, and we know how "civil" those are.

Blue Team Progressivism is a church, offering you moral superiority and a path to spiritual enlightenment. As a church it's got a lot going for it. It runs religious programming on television, all day every day. Every modern primetime program is like a left-wing Andy Griffith show, reinforcing lessons of inclusion, tolerance, feminism, and anti-racism.

Watching a 90-pound Sci-Fi heroine beat up a room full of giant evil men is as satisfying to the left as John Wayne westerns were for the right.

The Blue Church controls the HR department, so even if you don't go to church, you have to act like a loyal churchgoer in every way that matters while you're on the clock. And off the clock, on any kind of public social media platform.

Hollywood award shows are like church talent shows - the skits and jokes aren't really funny, but it's fun to look at the pretty girls, and you're all on the same team.

He's right. Not only is the "news" media the clergy of that church, but the entertainment media is, too. I'd go so far as to say that the entertainment media is the actual "High Church" while the news media is its Inquisition.

500 pieces of Winchester .38 Super unprimed brass, new in unopened 100
round bags. (I traded my .38 Super in on my Hi Power last year.) Plus
about 200 rounds of loaded ammo and another 150 once-fired cases.
(Never did find a lot of that brass after shooting it.)

Monday, January 09, 2017

One day a woman happens upon the store and enters the ground
floor. She is met by a large sign that says "All the men on this
floor have jobs."

"Wow," she thinks, "that's a good thing, but hardly sufficient to
make them marriage material." So she gets on the elevator and goes
to the second floor. On this floor she is greeted by a sign that
says, "On this floor all the men have jobs and like kids."

"That's great, but I have to wonder what's on the next
floor!" so on she goes.

The sign on the third floor says "On this floor all the men have
jobs, like kids and help with housework." She doesn't even bother
stepping off the elevator - on to the fourth floor.

"On this floor all the men have jobs, like kids, help with
housework and are devastatingly handsome." On to floor five!

"On this floor all the men have jobs, like kids, help with the
housework, are devastatingly handsome and romantic."

You know what happens next.

When the elevator doors open on the sixth floor, there is only
one light lit, the one that illuminates the sign. THIS sign says,
"You are shopper 33,695,427 to reach this floor. There are no men
on this floor. This floor serves to illustrate that no matter
what, no woman can be pleased. Thank you for confirming our
hypothesis."

Now across the street, the same man built a Wife Store. Same six
floor design, same rules. On the first floor the sign says "All
the women on this floor love sex." On the second floor the sign
says "All the women on this floor love sex and have money."

It would be simpler to ask “What wouldn’t you change about America’s gun laws?” Other answers here have been interesting, but I think in this case I will answer a slightly different question: “What ONE gun law would you change if you could?”

It shall be unlawful for any person who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.

Do you have any idea how many “crimes” are “punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year”? Note that you don’t have to actually be sentenced to “more than one year,” just that the sentence could be more than one year.

a crime, typically one involving violence, regarded as more serious than a misdemeanor, and usually punishable by imprisonment for more than one year or by death.

Now misdemeanors come with possible sentences of two years, and you can be charged with a felony for failing to pay for a movie ticket. And there’s no path to get your rights back.

If I could change nothing else, I’d change that.

Well, it's being challenged in court, and one of the lawyers challenging it is Alan Gura (h/t to SayUncle for the pointer). Gura won in the 3rd Circuit, but is also pursuing a similar case in the D.C. District Court. The government has filed a petition for certoriari to the Supreme Court after their loss in the 3rd Circuit. Hopefully a good replacement for Scalia will be seated on the Court in time to hear it, should they grant cert.

On an unrelated note, I just realized that this is my first post for 2017. I guess I really am cutting back.

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